Slashdot Mirror
Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer
svnt writes "Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account, remortgaged their paid-for house, and took out a lien against the family car in an attempt to cash in on the deal. A undercover officer involved with the investigation called it the worst example of the scam he's ever seen. Thoughtfully, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."
not only that she never heard of these kinds of scams.... but that no one who could have talked her out of it before then had either...
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
Here's your sign: L
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
What can I say? She deserved it? I mean who send $400k to Nigeria?
Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
Damn.
"It is immoral to allow a sucker to keep their money."
I am officially gone from
This woman is the reason these kinds of scams exist. She should be exiled.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...Aw yes!
a fool and their money are soon parted
she should have stupid tatoo'd on her forehead.
Why would anyone admit to being a retard?
This is a Technology story? Why? Because the scam happened via email? Pretty tenuous link there. Also a pretty weak story. I guess it's amusing that she was unashamed enough to admit her stupidity and greed, but other than that I'm not sure why I should care. She and the scammer both should face charges, but I'm not sure how this is "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters."
everything in moderation
...more like former husband
the casinos are.
FTA: "They are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false promises will turn out to be real."
From the casinos: "They (the gamblers) are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they decend into a vicious cycle of *betting* money in hopes the false promises (of actually winning) will turn out to be real."
The only difference between the Nigerian scam and the casino scam, is the government IS involved in the casino scam and gets to share your money.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
"For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted."
Slashdot is not exactly going to be a sympathetic crowd here. What we have is an intelligent person who ignored every single bit of advice from a multitude of sources in favor of outright greed. So now she wants to warn people, but is it really going to do any good? She clearly would have ignored the advice she is now giving.
yes, for most of us here on slashdot, this is incredibly brain dead, but in general, there is a problem with you if you blame the victim for a crime, no matter how foolish or stupid they acted
whether a rape victim for wearing revealing clothes, or a guy walking in a dangerous neighborhood at night, yes: you can attack the victim, but if you want to actually claim any moral highground (which many of you seem to assume with a withering condescending tone as you blame the victim), the person who bears 100% responsibility and accountability for a crime is the criminal themselves, and only the criminal, and no one else
using knowledge and care to avoid crime is of course an important aspect of any behavior, but just because someone fails to do this, for any reason, does not mean they share blame for being victimized: a transgression is a transgression is a transgression. no one ASKS to be victimized in such a horrible way
if you walk by the front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and no one is home, and in plain site is a stack of 20 dollar bills, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20s. the person who left them there like that is, yes, pretty stupid. but they deserve zero blame. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the trangressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit
any other opinion on the issue is, frankly, not morally or philosophically coherent
although, for some you then, by all means, heckle the woman who gave away $$00K, since some of you honeslty and openly claim no moral high ground
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold."
is she being scammed again? which one of you promised her $400k in 3-4 years?
"A fool and [her] money are soon parted."
Ladies(?) and gentleman... I present to you the reason there is a 'don't drink' warning on paint cans, vector pictures of babies suffocating in bags on plastic bags, and 'do not throw in bathtub' warning stickers on toasters.
There ARE people dumb enough.
Microsoft Denies Paying Nigerians $400K To Ditch Linux
There's some comedy gold in there, a few tidbits!
...okay i'm going to hell...
"Janella Spears doesnt think shes a sucker or an easy mark."
"They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help."
"When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bushâ(TM)s letter said. Spears continued to send funds."
"Most of the missives were rife with misspellings."
Priceless!
You will see the woman was informed that this is a scam by "Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials."
Shedding further light on the situation, "An undercover investigator who worked on the case said greed helped blind Spears to the reality of the situation."
I'm sorry, but I just can't feel sympathy for a greedy asshole screwing an incredibly gullible greedy sucker. If no one warned her it would be one thing, but come on!
However, I do feel sorry for her husband who lost his retirement account in the sad proceedings.
I wonder if she is related. . .
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Think of all the good that amount could've done for the local community, or any charity, if it was donated, or even just invested wisely.
But no, it was squandered away.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Enough said.
Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.
I guess people this stupid deserve it.
I wonder if there is any relation to another Spears with questionable judgement?
needs some hot grits. dont forget about her!
survival of the fittest
Perhaps. But Occam's razor suggests that it never occurred to her that there might be a downside to publicly admitting to being this stupid, and she went public not "thoughtfully" as a "warning to others" but rather unthinkingly as a further example of what happens when you never think things through.
--MarkusQ
these scams always seemed humorously obvious, but reading this is heartbreaking.
"and is a reverend"
Predisposition to gullibility.
"hearing-impaired husband."
"She wiped out her husbandâ(TM)s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for."
Preys on the less fortunate.
"she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bushâ(TM)s letter said"
More gullibility. Well, outright stupidity at this point.
Yep, definitely republican.
Greed uber alles!
400,000 dollars is peanuts... There are millions of much dumber people out there.
Deleted
which is worse?:
1. man falls asleep at wheel of truck, smashes into bus full of kids, kills 10. feels awful about it
2. man carefully watches bus route for weeks, carefully plotting and calculating exactly when to smash into bus to kill children. he kills 2 children. he feels bad he didn't kill more
#2 is absolutely many times more criminal than #1, even though he killed far less children. because of a magic concept which all legal codes understand: intent
any legal code in the world has a difference of understanding between manslaughter and murder, with the punishment for murder being far worse than manslaughter. the magic difference? intent
do you know what intent is? you apparently do not, it currently does not inform your opinions
if you leave a stack of $20s out, you are thoughtless. you have no intent. therefore, you have committed no crime. meanwhile, if you walk into an open door and take the stack of $20s, you have a clear intent to commit a transgressive act and relieve someone else of something valuable which is not yours. you, and you alone, are culpable for what you have done
the magic concept?
intent
intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.
Get it? EVERYONE was telling her it's a scam, and she decided, again and again, not to listen to them. It wasn't a one-time decision, but a repeated one.
I was going to feel sorry for her, but it turns out she was way too in love with their own ignorance and stupidity. It's wrong that she basically destroyed the financial security of her husband as well.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
no wonder healthcare is so expensive!
13 o'clock? Is this going to be on BBC? Which one? I'll set my DVR to record it.
Sure it seems like a tragedy now, but my gut feeling is that if she had sent one more payment, those millions would be in her bank account at this very moment. The same guy contacted me and I'm certain that with one or two more payments I will soon be rich beyond my wildest dreams. Remember kids, quitters never win and winners never quit.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
I've actually known this to happen to someone I know, and yep, it was his wife. And yep, they're now divorced. Wiped out his joint retirement funds as well, plus he now owes taxes on the amount withdrawn from the tax exempt retirement savings. I've never actually met her, but people that have said they always thought she was a nut. Total cost I'm told is close to half a million dollars. And no, it's not the same couple in the article.
"The scammers ran Spears through the whole program. They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help."
And all you people doubted our President's intelligence! He's opening additional revenue streams to get us out of debt.
I can only hope and pray that Obama, having African blood and thus being more closely related to our Nigerian friends, will be able to expand this source of government revenue.
SSC
I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings? I'm also not clear on how she managed to remortgage the house without her husband's signature.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Firstly, you would think her husband would have stopped her if she was screwing with his retirement. Granted, I've never been married, so I don't know.
Secondly, it'll take her "at least three to four years to dig out of the debt..." This is a pretty good indication of her money skills that she thinks she can dig out of $400k of debt in 3-4 years.
... being deaf and all.
the vast majority of legal codes in all world societies throughout all time periods of human history understands the difference in those concepts
you don't
you think intent is a "strawman"
you fail. hard
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I know a bank CEO who refused to transfer money for a Nigerian scam, and the woman accuses him of standing in the way of her making millions. A variety of people have spoken with her, but she is adamant. This standoff has existed for weeks. I don't know the final status.
"You can fool some of the people all the time ..."
I'm surprised that the bank didn't step in at the point and not lend her the money. Several times I've gotten a mortgage or line of credit the bank always wants to know why... "Why do you need to mortgage your house again?" should have been the question and the bank, upon hearing her answer (I can't imagine she would lie since she seems pretty gullible) should have been "No ma'am, I'm sorry but we cannot lend you the money for that." I'm sure there are some unscrupulous banks but - come on - the bank is not likely to see its money after she declares bankruptcy!
This scammer got tattooed, all right.
Pick two.
And this just proves it; when we protect stupid people, they don't die off, they breed more, and we get people that actually fall for scams.
More so, they fall for a scam this bad. The spelling is poor, the requests are pathetic, and she fell for it. She was willing to ruin the life of her husband for this, too; in the small chance that she was randomly selected by people she never knew to get tons of money.
She's not some 'helpless victim', either. If someone gets raped, that is a helpless victim. If the raped one went with the rapist, despite everybody they knew telling them not to, and ruined their loved ones life just to go with the rapist in case the rapist might actually have a 'magic penis', well, then no pity for them either.
She's a spokeswoman for stupidity. After this scam has been out for years, has been highlighted by news channels, has been made into a common joke, she has no excuse for this madness. She took out everyone around her for it. If anything, I feel bad for her husband; he lost his retirement money because -she- was greedy.
She was so greedy, she failed to even realize how ridiculous it is that the FBI and Bush would be relying on her sending money to Nigerians to save the day; it doesn't even go along with the same premise of her getting money out of this!
This woman is so gullible, she probably would jump off a cliff if someone said she would just bounce off the ground like a bouncy ball, with no damage or pain.
And her vote in the election counted the same as mine... Sigh.
She lost a butt-load of money. Maybe she's coming forward to "share" her story so she can get some publicity. Maybe down the line she'll get a book deal, or be signed on as an "inspirational speaker" where people give her a few bucks to tell her story.
Brilliant strategy! She'll be a millionaire by 2010! All she has to do is send me $50 a week, and I'll make it happen.
I have a customer who has now bought his "anti virus" twice from the malware program infecting his computer and still insists that his computer shouldn't be having any problems and refuses to buy our anti-virus software since he has "already paid for one"
you never know what you are going to get
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Besides her work as a nursing administrator, Spears â" no relation to the well-known pop star â" ..."
So no more, you comedians.
Forest Gump said it best:
"Stupid is as stupid does"
Do you know how many spam emails a Nigerian can send for $400K?
I'm sure she would spend $10 on that:
http://www.despair.com/mis24x30prin.html
Je me souviens.
"Certainly, what the scammer did was morally and legally wrong and what this woman did was not. But that is orthogonal to the fact that it is this woman's fault that she got ripped off. (And it is also the scammer's fault for ripping her off.)"
work out your logical contradictions here
then get back to us
if someone does something morally and legally wrong, they are at fault. beginning and end of story. the use of the word "orthogonal" then is just bloviating and meaningless
there is a difference between stupid and evil. stupid often enables evil, but you always punish evil, never the stupid. when you punish the stupid instead of the evil, you have become stupid or evil yourself, because you have helped enable evil by allowing them to get off for their crimes while you focus your fury on the stupid
the stupid, by definition of being stupid, have a diminished capacity in the crime in question. when you are in the business of assigning blame, you must always begin and end with the concept of intent. to consider any other concept waters down the rightful punishment those with bad intent deserve, and share their punishment with the victims and innocent bystands... who are just orthogonal to a crime ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Radio 2 I think.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Greed.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
The only difference between the Nigerian scam and the casino scam, is the government IS involved in the casino scam and gets to share your money.
There is another very important difference. When gambling, you know you are gambling. And, in the vast majority of cases, the odds of winning the game you are playing are published and widely known. The casino does not, for example, attempt to convince you that you are actually using your money to facilitate some sort of international transaction from which you will have earned a sizeable cut.
I think this difference prevents casinos from being lowered to the same moral level as scammers. Yes, they stack the odds against you...but they also publish those odds.
if the woman had zero intent to do wrong, then she can be guilty guilty guilty!... and deserve no punishment. according yo your supposition that intent equates to level punishment, right?
meanwhile, the scammers had every intent to do wrong, therefore they deserve real punishment, according to your supposition
therefore, in your scenario, the woman get sno punishment, the scammers get real punishment, and all the res tis pointless verbiage. ok, the woman is guilty, she's reposnible, she's an albatross, whatever. doesn't matter what you clal her. the point is she doesn't get punished, in your eyes, and the scammers do, which is all that is important. the rest is verbiage
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
so at 1pm then?
"Now, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."
She refused to listen to others when they were warning her so why should people now listen to her?
4. ... Divorce husband and move away.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Maybe she works for microsoft
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
In Vegas at least, they're regulated like crazy. They have to tell you the odds of any game they offer, and the gaming commission spot-checks them all the time.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There are girls on the internet?!!? /sarcasm
Clearly madness really does run in the Spears family.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Lay off the poor woman, will you ?
She just needed some shoes. Is she going to get them for free from Carrie Bradshaw ?
OK so it's not really free, but if you think about it all that "free money" requires is an ISP, a nigerian bank account, plus the forged documents from government officials. It might cost like $100 USD, but when the payoff is this big, it's kinda worth it.
howabout we use a new concept: functional morality, or utilitarian righteousness, or whatever sounds cool to you...
the point being, we wish to live in a world with a bare minimum possible of nigerian scammers, right?
well, what is best focus of our moral and legal imperative to punish?
if we are waging a war on this activity, who do we target, who do we punish?
well, we need stupid people to enable the activities of these criminals
but the stupid victims are just that: stupid. stupidity is an endless bottomless pit. you will never get rid of stupid people in this world
meanwhile, there are only a certain number of scammers. oh sure, its a game of wackamole, and there will always people who will pursue scamming as a way to make cash, just as certainly as there will always be stupid people
however, you are trying to do your best to minimize scammers, therefore, simply because the scammers are the smaller pool in question, you focus all of your righteous fury, functional punishment, whatever you want to call it, on them, and you actually make a larger dent on this activity
you get better results than if you meanwhile hem and haw about stupid people. which will make no difference. there will always be suckers
how's that arugment strike you?:
focus your contempt on the nigerian scammers, get better results
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I call BS. She isn;t white trash by her appearance and speaking. Two years of sending cash? I doubt it, probably some kind of tax scam.
When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush's letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course.
Finally, we know why we are running a huge deficit. What are odds that this dimwit is a Republican and one of those that approves of the job that Bush is (still !) doing ?
Blaming the victim in this case is perfectly legitimate. Most long cons like this involve an appeal to the element of criminality on the part of the victim. Why would this woman think that she is entitled to pull millions of dollars worth of free money out of Africa?
The basic Nigerian scam depicts a corrupt official stealing money who 'needs your help'. To fall for it isn't just stupid, it's venal.
her e-mail address.
Free money not really free,
Unless you're the scammer...
Wow, her hubby must want to shove her under a train.
This woman is a complete idiot. Not only does she lose her own money, but encourages other Nigerian scammers to scam others. If people didn't fall for it, they would stop doing it. Not to mention that SHE too is a criminal. I think people have way to much sympathy for people like her. She is NOT an innocent victim, she herself voluntarily participated in a fraudulent scam, and she was clearly aware that her actions were not legal. The fact that she in turn got scammed just does her justice. She should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
was free to the scammers... xD
I suggest we go over there and lynch the niggers who are doing this.
Everybody is saying this woman is stupid. That may not be the problem. She may be otherwise intelligent, but she is greedy, and that overrides her reasoning.
This woman wanted money she didn't earn, and got what she deserved.
I love the fact that no one points out that even if she isn't the most gullible person on earth, her morals are still shockingly lacking. She's ready to help funnel millions out of a poor African country. Money that is almost surely going to be used for nefarious purposes. Kind of makes illegally selling arms to African nations seem moral.
From TFA: Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.
"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em." - Louis Armstrong
I think all this talk of Nigerian email scams is affecting you...
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Free money not really free, and stupid people still stupid. Story at 13 o'clock.
I use military time, so your argument is invalided.
what the hell were you thinking? it takes an extremely stupid brainless clod to fall for such an obvious scam...
yeah, i am being insensitive but not without good reason, this stupid woman just wiped out her life savings for a get rich quick & confidence scam of the lamest kind...
Legality and morality are two different things.
Being illegal doesn't automatically make something immoral any more than being immoral automatically makes something illegal.
Drawing conclusions about one based on properties of the other is logically unsound. Apples-to-oranges.
Morality is especially slippery because the values upon which it is built tends to vary from culture-to-culture, and even from person-to-person. There are some elements of morality that tend to be pretty common, but things always get really fuzzy around the edges.
Legality, despite its abundance of ambiguities, at least has the advantage of well-documented sources and well-defined jurisdictions. It remains, however, just someone else's opinion on what I should and should not do (albiet with a big stick to back the opinion up).
I was curious of not so much reading the story (I didn't :), but wanted to know what a dumb ass really looks like.
Perhaps this will save you some trouble: dumb ass
Here is my situation. I'm 26 year old programmer, my parents are average PC/internet users, both about 50 years old. Yet, I have never talk to them about security, I mean certificates, check url address, scam, nigerian letters, loteries, fraudulent js pages, hoaxes, etc... I's kinda embrassing, just like parent to teenager talk about sex, we never talked about that. I just hope they are enought smart to not send their money to anybody.
"You can't cheat an honest man; never give s sucker an even break or wise up a chump."
Not exiled. Deported. To Nigeria.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Downmod me all you want fuckers, you know she's gonna do it!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Leave Janella alone! (crying and shouting)
This is what's meant by the saying "you can't con an honest man." It was her greed that drove her deeper and deeper into the scam, greed to get $26 million she did nothing to earn, $26 million that didn't and shouldn't belong to her even if it did exist.
Kudos to her for publicizing her story as a warning to others, but jeers for the basic lack of honesty that got her in trouble in the first place.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
>People become obsessed with the scam. They are so desperate to recoup their losses with
>the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false
>promises will turn out to be real.
The emotional trap these people are caught in immediately reminded me of religion. I'm sure many religious people, at least the more intelligent ones, have at some point in their religious lives thought about just getting out of the scam, but found it, as they get older, increasingly difficult to do so because all those years (decades) they've wasted time on religion (sunk costs) may result in momumental losses (life without a meaning) if they would simply give it up at a later point in their lives. So, like Spears, they just decide to stay in the cycle in hopes all they've imagined or being told, one day will turn to be true and that the "big payout" in the heavens will come.
people have two, i guess you could say, prejudices, when it comes to crime
some people automatically blame themselves, some people automatically blame someone else, regardless of who is to actually blame
you can see this play out in all sorts of crimes: say a guy gets drunk and gets in a car accident. as he is being led away by the police, he is screaming at the driver of the car he hit for being a moron. this guy's prejudice is that whenever something goes wrong, its someone else's fault, never his
now let's talk about a domestic beating situation, where the guy comes home, beats the wife senseless for not cooking the pot roast enough, then goes to bed. the wife blames herself, for not cooking the pot roast enough. this woman's prejudice is that whenever something goes wrong, it is her fault, never someone else's
both of these prejudice are alive and well on questions of accountability, blame, morality, etc., on all sorts of events in this world, from small daily snafus to major international events
but these prejudices about who is to blame can often be far off from a logically valid analysis of blame, because they come from a preconcieved notion of how to apportion blame, which can oftentimes stray far from logic and reason
so i understand your attitude, and your approach, but you really have just blame the criminal, the one who commits the transgressive act. yes, you are often in a helpless situation, not able to do anything about a crime except change your own behavior. but that's not morally valid. learning to blame yourself for more than you are actually accountable for is not only morally unsound, it is dangerous to you psychologically. when you blame yourself fro crimes you are the vicitm in, you are doing damage to your psyche
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dear Congress,
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I am an official representative of the United State mortgage industry. I have assets worth trillion US dollars in liquidity; however, to release these assets, I will need $700,000,000,000 ($700B) in advance. By providing this sum, the assets worth TRILLIONS US will be provided to the US economy.
This is entirely legal and will only cost each man, woman and child in the US $2325 (TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS). I look forward to our business arrangement.
This had gone on for almost 10 years, many had been killed, many sad stories available online, and people still fall for it. Plain old greed still works wonders.
in psychology 101...yeah yeah don't blame the victim...ever...even if their own actions directly lead to their being "victimized"
screw that
HAVE SOME PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY!!!!
I've got an analogy too.
You're pointing a knife at your own neck and moving it closer.
I see you and tell you to stop.
You don't stop and kill yourself.
Some idiot on the internet has the audacity to blame the knife.
Yes she was scammed. That is wrong.
Then she was also told my MULTIPLE PEOPLE and THE POLICE that it was a scam.
At that point she's no longer the victim. She's the pupetrator. She voluntarily gave money away. That's not a crime. You think there are fraud laws in nigeria? You think nigeria is going to extradite these guys?
Is it her fault she gave away a ton of money?
Yes.
Is she a victim.
No.
I truly believe that if you're dumb enough to KNOWINGLY put yourself into any situation which could get you raped or killed or robbed. You're at least partly responsible for your actions.
But face it you're waxing standard psychological babble that is completely subjective. Blame is not definite. Neither is deservedness. It will always be subjective on a case by case basis.
There is no metric by which to measure whether someone deserves something or not. It is 100% opinion based.
"Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold."
Call me amoral, but if she makes enough money that it only takes 3-4 years to get out of $400,000 in debt, I don't feel bad for her.
I'm sure there are people blowing a couple year-s salaries in Vegas every day... they only have slightly better odds then her at getting money and are just as gullible.
You seem to be stuck on the idea that any of this is about punishment. It's a theme that pops up in several of your posts here, while the people replying to you don't even mention punishment.
Punishment has nothing to do with blame and vice versa, rendering all your arguments about who should be punished completely moot. It doesn't matter who should be punished, since that has absolutely nothing to do with what people (other than you) are talking about in this thread.
Look, I don't get it.
I'm not particularly ambitious, corporate-ladder wise, but I make decent money IMO.
But I'm not insanely stupid with my money, either.
Yet I don't have $400,000 to blow.
If I did, I sure as fuck wouldn't give it to MR AKELE MBUMBA OF NIGERIA.
What I don't understand is: How does someone so stupid have so much money?
Anyone?
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Thats kind of a good point. I think it would just apply to people that are prone to obsession and take it to seriousley. Their are some people that pratice religion to make their lives better and dont subscribe to that big payoff thing. Some people like the stucture of religion because its hard for them to create their own.
When I used to work for a certain international courier company I was always trying to talk people out of sending packages to Nigeria... It was usually PS2s that they were convinced they would get paid for AFTERWARDS... and they would have the Nigerian person's shipping account to send it on -- and of course, the second it was shipped, the Nigerian person's account would prove to have a cancelled credit card and a fake name. :/ Not a single one of those people EVER believed me that they were being scammed no matter how hard I tried to convince them. People are so willfully ignorant sometimes! And GREEDY! "OMG! I'll get $$? SIGN ME UP!"
"What we have is an intelligent person who ignored every single bit of advice
from a multitude of sources in favor of outright greed."
She is perfectly qualified for top management!
She should be at Lehman Brothers or AIG !
why? because you aren't an idiot
an idiot is an idiot. you have to understand the full ramifications of that
by definition, because they can't do the logic you just outlined above, they ar eincapable of engaging in the mechanisms of doing wrong other than being the one is done wrong to
stupidity is not evil. the mind that full well knows what it is doing wrong, and does it anyway, over a carefully planned and sustained period, deserved all accountability for the crime
meanwhile, if you insist on blaming the stupid, for being stupid, you're
1. not going to get any results. we're talking about the stupid again, right?
2. apportioning blame away from real evildoers onto their victims
all blame should go to the one who commits the trangression, and never the one who is transgressed, no matte rhow foolish they behave. this is the only point of view oyu can take and be morally coherent on the larger meaning of what it means to be responsible
you, by blaming the vicitm, ar ehelping to enable the criminal with the "but the devil made me do it" defense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Incredible. Your posts are so well argued, so well thought out, so coherent and so well spelt. I almost forgot I was on Slashdot.
But, your lack of capitalization and irreverent and lacking use of punctuation robs your message of value. It's a crime but, I can't figure out who shoulders the blame. Is it you or me?
Do you know how many virgins he can have to get rid of his AIDS for $400,000?
An middle-aged white woman who is active in her christian church?
Not a chance.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
After all, she's a "reverend" so she she already honestly believes in fairy tales. If we could only eliminate superstition, then religions would stop creating so many "sheep" like this.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
This is classic nurse administrator behavior.
>but found it, as they get older, increasingly difficult to do so because all those years (decades) they've wasted time on religion (sunk costs) may result in momumental losses (life without a meaning) if they would simply give it up at a later point in their lives.
Religion? Sounds like you are talking about World of Warcraft!
As mentioned in the comments, this women basically agreed to defraud some government of the money "held in an escrow account".
It's not like these guys stole her lottery-jackpot.
She had no problem taking part in an illegal transaction.
But some people really only seem to see the money and think "Heck, it could work".
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
If anyone in my family was going along with a scam like this, and I knew about it, and they wouldn't stop, I think I would go to a judge, explain the circumstances, ask for the judge to declare her mentally incompetent, and ask to be made her legal guardian, just to protect her from herself. Someone shouldn't be allowed to throw away the life savings of their spouse just because they are an imbecile.
err... that's “personal responsibility”
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
Read the article again. The article says she *sent* 400,000 to the scammers. It never says she borrowed 400,000. In fact, it never mentions how much she borrowed at all, only that she sent 400k, and that two of the sources of that money were borrowed. I imagine that of that 400k, the bulk of it actually came from the retirement account she threw away. Maybe she borrowed 20k, or 50k, and the remainder was from the savings.
It may be entirely possible to pay off her debt in 3-4 years, because it's probably much less than 400k. It's also possible that she really is very much underestimating just how long it will take to pay off the debt. A few years ago I had some credit card debt I had to pay off. It took about a year and a half to pay off, and that was only a few thousand dollars.
there's more Christians
What I want to know is where in the hell does someone of her obvious intellect work that she can earn nearly half a million dollars over her expenses in three to four years!
And if she *is* earning that much, what does she need with another $20m anyway?
It's either insightful or flamebait (or maybe both), but why is it modded funny?
what a fucking idiot
You can't take the sky from me.
I feel really sorry for her (now pensionless) husband, he probably worked hard all his life to get that money.
She just sounds like a real moron, and also incredibly deceitful to rip off her own husbands pension without telling him.
Shouldn't it be "An undercover officer"? instead of "A undercover officers"
See ebolamonkeyman.com and 419eater.com.
These scammers will try anything for a buck. My favorite one is where one of these guys told the Nigerian scammer that what he really needed was Nigerian hand-carved wooden replicas of cartoon characters for an extremely high mark-up and profit. Then when the first hand-carved samples came in, he sent back a photoshopped picture of the shipment with the explanation that a rare African hampster had gotten loose in the cargo hold and eaten holes in the figures, and new ones would have to be sent. He got a bunch of real nice hand-carved souvenirs out of that one.
Where I'm from, if you try to cross a 4 lane highway during rush hour and you end up underneath a truck, its 'cause ya crawled there :)
Dumbest fucking person on Earth. Right, so the republicans will snap her right up and have her for president in 2012. Admit it america, you want her.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Greed is beneficial as long as the greedy individual can keep what he or she obtains. Greedy individuals can better support their offspring, who generally share their greedy genes. The balance between greed and altruism basically depends on the general wisdom of society. The more altruistic people are, the more greedy people can benefit, but the less altruistic people are, the less they benefit from cooperation. A stable point is where there is just enough altruism and greed to consume all the available resources without too many people getting upset and changing the gene pool with a shotgun.
That rape victim who went along willingly is all to common. From date rape to battered wives. People and women especially, are not raised to be... well skeptics, to always question, to always wonder "what do they want of me".
There are two toilets at your place of work, one is occupied, the other isn't. Why do you want in front of the one that is occupupied? Because a very small sign tells you to. A simple sign has the power to command you without questioning why you are holding it up while a perfectly fine toilet is available. People EVEN do this if they are in a place were NONE of the opposite sex are present or ever likely to be present.
Yes she was greedy, and I have little sympathy for her, but in a way, she is just the result of our world were in order to function as a group we must obey countless rules without questioning because they just have to be. Why do we drive on the right side of the road, even if the road is deserted, why do we stop for a red light even if there is no other traffic etc etc. I can drive a forklift in a deserted warehouse and I will STILL drive on the right of a road that is nothing more then the empty space between goods.
Most people here know about scams like this but recently I was sent a scam mail myself on anonymized service (no email, url, etc is allowed through just plain text) that makes scams impossible since the person talking to you can't contact you directly in anyway. So I had to ask "what the hell does the poster want" as I could not make sense of it. Turned out it was a scam, just an automated one sent by people who didn't know the system filters messages to such an extent.
Thrown into a situation where the rules you and I normally use to judge messages were different, my spam detector failed (it is a help service and many messages are garbled as people write them in great emotional distress at times and people then don't always make sense).
Yes, she is stupid and she should be fired from her job but being gullible and going along with a scam is also very human. Candid camera programs prove this. We really expect things to be true, for people not to lie because else the world doesn't work.
Check it yourself. Do you go blindly into the men's room without checking it is the men's room, just because a small sign says you won't be sued for entering it? A sign you have no reason is there legitamate?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So, what is supposed to follow from "fault," in cases where there is no question of moral or legal wrong? In cases where it does it not play a role in either the moral or the legal calculus of the situation, what role does it play?
Are you adequate?
Thinking critically and asking questions seems to be out of fashion these days. It scares me that this woman might be in charge of a life somewhere...
One of the best things that we did in high school did was to have units on "Critical Thinking."
We were given real consumer ads to "deconstruct" by answering questions (e.g., "The ad says that the coffee is 'mountain grown.' Explain why this does/doesn't make a difference"). We even had the assignment of coming up with a misleading ad ourselves to drive home the point.
I guess liberal, Midwestern "Outcome Based" educators in the US Educational system do some good after all...
"Janella Spears doesnt think shes a sucker or an easy mark."
-No, not a sucker or easy mark. She is a full-blown idiot.
"Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted."
-Ok, just *HOW* stupid can people get?!?!?!
"She wiped out her husband's retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for."
-If I were her husband, I'd have her committed, since such flagrant stupidity is reserved for people who like to bang their heads on walls. Not only that, I'd divorce her, take everything I had left (not much) and leave the fool penniless and homeless.
"Now, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."
-No, by going public, she is now hoping that she will be able to dupe others into feeling sorry for her and sending her "donations" to help bail her out and fix the results of her mind-blowing stupidity. *DEFINITELY* not a scam I'll be falling victim to.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Where coffee is grown does make a difference. Different plants require different amounts of light. Mountains give three kinds of sunlight, shade side, sun side and the valley. Well the bit on top too but that is generally hard to farm as people fall off and mountain goats keep eating your crops.
So there is a difference between where in mountanous terrain the coffee is grown because it determines how much sunlight it gets.
Same as for instance in holland there is an exception to the rule that no sugar may be added for the production of wine. In warmer climates this is reasonable, but the cold climate of holland does not produce enough sugar of its own for the fermentation process.
Currently the debate if coffee is about shade-grown vs sun-grown. Traditionally coffee was grown under trees, this however makes the coffee bean mature slower. To ease production and make it quicker, farmers cut the trees down exposing the coffee shrub to the sun. This however is bad for the enviroment.
So now the shift is slowly going back to shade-grown coffee.
Wether mountain grown is a valid or non-valid term, is up for debate, BUT the part of critical thinking is to FULLY examine ALL elements of a claim. I am missing that in your post. There is a difference where the coffee been grows at least in the amount of sunlight it gets. Wether you can taste the difference (I got lousy taste buds) is up for debate, but mountain grown itself is an odd term (do they mean shade or sunside of the mountain) but the implication that were the coffee is grown matters is not. Shade-grown coffee is preferable, not for the taste but because it is better for the enviroment.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Did she really do it or did she just stick it to her man?
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Sounds like she's thought of a great idea for a book, and she may well be making up the story about her savings being blown anyway. Perhaps she's smarter than all of us.
Maybe she's even an undercover Nigerian.
When the book comes out - check the spelling.
Nullius in verba
Why would someone go public to say "Look what a stupid bitch I am!"
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Well Done... I hope your teacher gave you a sticker for that.
Regards,
~The Troll
Then we sell the list to Nigeria?
From the article..
Several posts to date, all by logged-in posters, have ripped off the ACOP's joke, one of which (so far) has been moderated to 5.
Lets assume the scam was real and she would have got the money.
She's breaking the law! Money laundering from Nigeria on the promise of million of dollars? and she's a reverend for the church!
Doesn't anyone see what is wrong with this or is everyone's moral compass broken?!
If we wasn't a prince he sure is one step closer to be it, with $400.000 more in his bank account. Talk about the law of attraction
I used to work in a bank. This happens all the time. Most people and/or their partners catch on after the first $20K leaves their account.
All I can think of is, damn.. i wish she'd have given it to me to pay off my student loans :/
Is that 13 AM or 13 PM (which is actually 25:00, and therefore 01:00 the next day)?
Does she get a congresional bailout?
Seriously... you recieve a letter from President Bush informing you that only YOU can possibly prevent this money from going to ter'ists, you simply need to send $100,000 to nigeria.
How fucking stupid do you have to be? I mean seriously.... wouldn't the fucking president of the united states be able to afford the "fees" needed to clear the cash if the story was actually true?
I just cannot fathom how someone could be so utterly stupid as to fall for this scam.
Personally I think anyone that falls for it deserves it.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=greed
-noun
excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions.
Not all desire for gain is greed.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Ah yes. Spoken like somebody in the left hand side of the curve.
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/02/local/me-nigerian2
"You think Einstein walked around thinkin' everyone was a bunch of dumb shits? ...Now you know why he built that bomb."
~ Rita (from the Movie Idiocracy).
A Man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties -- Albert Einstein
The Nigerians are thinning the herd.
Sweethome is an intellectual backwater in Western Oregon. Apparently, Spears gravitated to this locale. Once again reinforcing the stereotype. FYI: median household income is $31,030 (Wikipedia), and I bet educational achievement is also below par.
Dear Santa,
This year, I'd like to have that woman's email address.
Thanks in advance!
Olrik
Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account
Somebody please explain to me how she was able to wipe out her husband's account. Shouldn't the husband be the only one able to wipe out his own account?
I bet her inbox grew when she announced this
There are people whose goal is to scam the scammers. http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/ Not sure of the ethics of scamming scammers but I suppose they do a public service.
And i mean really really good.
Someone very dear to me, got scammed out of almost 100k USD. The person I am talking about is not an ignorant idiot, infact he is a well educated architect, with almost 30 years of experience in business.
The tricked him, and showed him the actual money (he traveled there, TWICE), set up a FAKE banking website which would show him that his account in that "~Internet Bank~" is 21 mil USD.
And kept on sucking on his money with excuses of paper work for this, bribe for that, etc.
He got greedy, and they abused that to the maximum.
Conclusion, these ppl are PROFESSIONAL, they actually study your character, your habits, etc, and a person has to be really smart not to fall for it. Infact, come to think of it, you have to belive that fairy tales dont exist anymore, you want 21 Mil USD, you freaking work your ass off.
I can tell you the rest of the story if you deposit a small amount into my /. account...
The lunatic is in my head
This is almost as bad
How can someone so dumb be in such a position in life to be able to get hold of $400,00 cash in 2 years, AND be able to dig back out from it in "3 to 4 years"?
So this woman is far from the "stupidest" person in this story. Like really, what kind of fail does it take to marry such a stubborn retard?
The husband here is at fault in 2 ways. First he marries this chic. Then, he gives her complete access to all of his money, all the while not questioning where his TENS and HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars are going, not to mention why he is cosigning a mortgage for a house he already paid for and taking more loaned cash on a car he already owns.
Clearly this lady doesn't have a job or she wouldn't need her husband to pay for her gambling addiction. She needs help. He needs to man up.
they should put her in prison for knowingly funding crime
Yep. As my old man told time and time again, "Son, if it's too good to be true, it is! No probably! IT IS!"
She saw $20m up for grabs and Captain Greedy raced to the surface and stomped on her common sense! F**king greedy cow, sorry love you got what you deserved!
captcha: thicky ( how ironic! )
Doesn't surprise me a bit.
In a way this is reassuring for people who saw Idiocracy. Humans do have a natural predator after all.
It's also a bit of poetic justice for Africans to take money from a gullibe group of people who had everything in life handed to them on a platter, especially if the ignorant victims generally think of third worlders as stupid and inferior.
A fool and her money are soon parted.
Film at 11.
Seriously, why is this news? Idiots fall for scams all the time, this idiot just fell a little harder than most.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
If you're not greedy you are a lot less vulnerable. If you're smart you can be outsmarted.
1. Actually, and speaking as an atheist myself, it seems to me that you'd still be off the mark if you do a blanket extrapolation that even all 2 billion christians fit your
If you look over the pond to most of continental Europe, that's flat out false. In Germany I've had someone knock on my door to give me pamphlets exactly _once_ in my entire life so far. Ok, a couple more tried to give them to me on the street, but we're still talking once-in-a-couple-of-years events. There are like 3 churches within walking distance of my house, at least one built entirely with donations from the local community of that particular christian sect, so there must be _some_ religious people around. But I haven't had them come over to tell me what to believe in. Much less "with great force and repetition." Heck, it now occurs to me that I don't even know who those religious people are at all, because they just don't start talks about it.
Or in France, as far as I know, you can actually go to a catholic school and not once see a crucifix or even hear about Jesus. ('Cause if they even mention Jesus, they lose the government subsidy for schools.)
The predominant culture at the moment is, basically, secular: your religion is your own private matter. Or how George Carlin put it: thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself. If you're religious, good for you, but keep it to yourself.
2. Extrapolate it about _all_ religions? Heh. There are plenty of religions which don't even have a problem with your believing in other gods.
E.g., Buddhism is largely an atheistic religion, as paradoxical as that sounds. It doesn't actually have a god of its own, and it has no fundamental problem with you throwing your lot in with other religions' gods. Your place in the great cycle of reincarnation are determined by what you _do_ and how you live your life, not by who you believe in. You're saved or damned (so to speak, and even then not in the abrahamic religion sense) by yourself, not by whether you brown-nose the right deity. Buddhism is more of a "manual", so to speak. And if you think you can find your way without their teachings, well, suit yourself. It certainly is possible, at least theoretically.
So it would make no sense for a Buddhist to try to save you from worshipping the wrong guy.
That's just one example of a religion which doesn't fit your stereotype at all. I could give more, but it's a too long message already.
I don't know, mate, it seems to me like again you try to paint all christianity through the prism of the USA bible(-thumping) belt. Try being openly gay in almost any community this side of the ocean, and the vast majority of people will just leave you alone. And if anyone gave you a bible-thumping lecture about it, most people would look funny at _him_.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
at how amazingly gullible and just plain stupid people can be. First McCain picked Palin and now this. I'm embarrassed by my own species on a constant basis. I wish the super-intelligent aliens would hurry up and come. Oh, that's right, more stupid people think they're already here.
@Free the Cowards
"If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis."
So a lot of women rate you Overrated? Are you sure you want to go that way?
Now back to your fascinating conversation about scammers...
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
@Hurriacan78
"I think it's a good thing to take resources from the stupid, and give it to the smart. And that's what's happening. Even if you do not like it. :)"
And if you can still say that if it happens to a parent, sibling, child, spouse or good friend then at least you are consistent and if not, not.
The upshot it's pretty easy to cruelly laugh at some gullible persons misfortune until some close to you is exploited. A noble society tries to uplift all it's members, not laugh at the misfortunate. It's your sort of snide glorification of cruelty that is alas all too common here in the U.S. that increasingly makes the U.S. a pariah state, which in the long run not only is immoral but actually endangers our safety when someone decides to "do something" about the cruel Americans. My assignment to you is to read some speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, and THINK (yes I'm shouting) about what they say, OK?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
"Pick my [scam] and you're guaranteed [riches] beyond your wildest dreams!"
"Pick my [religion] and you're guaranteed [heaven] beyond your wildest dreams!"
It's incredible how much people will invest themselves in something stupid in hopes of earning that jackpot. (to be fair, there are plenty of benefits to religion even taking heaven out of the equation, eg. social + moral benefits)
@quarterbuck:
"If nothing else, show some concern for old people and people who are not as smart as you are."
I think this is quite literally the first compassionate response I have read in this whole long thread. The reason so many "nerds" don't have a social life is it's "cool" in the nerd sub culture to be an arrogant, unfeeling jerk. It makes me very thankful that I hang out with probably 50% social activists, 25% artists, and only 25% nerds (techno fetishists), y'all REALLY need to get out and meet some more kind hearted people.
Rant=over
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
I just can't believe it!
Not everyone is upper middle class with a thoroughgoing understanding of the minutia of the law. Spend some time in places like rural Oregon where this women is from among ordinary people before you judge her for not being knowledgeable of these sorts of laws. Not everyone is like you or I a political animal that spends hours per day on the internet. Try to understand that there are people VERY different from yourself in this country and try to have some passion for their circumstances, OK?
And yes I DO know of what I speak having spent several years in rural coastal southern Oregon teaching an after school web design class in a tiny town there. And no it wasn't all bad, not only was the countryside beautiful but there were many interesting artists living in off the grid houses way before "peak oil" was a trendy buzzword. There were also a lot of "red necks" and almost none of these people were very computer literate and that's OK, IMO we are best poised to survive whatever comes down the pike if we have diverse memepool, which yes includes people who may not be able to configure Linux in a virtual machine but may know how to set up a water system from a spring, how to hunt, and how to grow a bountiful garden which may become damn useful if we run out of fossil fuel.
So in short there are MANY people living way beyond the boundaries of the map indicated by your white bread "moral compass," deal.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
I'm picturing a banjo suddenly sprouting wings and a razor-sharp beak, soaring over the landscape and tweeting bluegrass licks. It's terrifying.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
can we expect the book? Surely she's still just as greedy, and what better way?
I hope these people and others like them are sterilized.
I lot of women would if there were a lot of women here. But remember what site you're posting to.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
a) Let's say there are 20,000 women here out of 2 million accounts, that would be 1% and i think it's probably more than that, but even at that number your "have no penis" statement just becomes ridiculous. It is in essence baiting tens of thousands of women to moderate you overrated. Do you really want to go that ?
b) Some of us would like to see more women in technology fields and on slashdot as well, crude sophomoric humor implying lack of penis equals bad comment is going to off putting to women who might post here. Again why go that way? It's just a pointlessly obnoxious broad bushing stereotype, and not even good humor, just weak.
Do better, OK?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
My previous sig was "fuck y'all", do you rate that as better or worse?
Honestly I could not possibly care less who I offend or scare away with my Slashdot signature.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
...all you bux are us.
Proud of yourself sexist troll?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Why would I be proud? It's just an insignificant bit of text on a silly albeit entertaining discussion site.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
and she gets what she deserves. i mean, how many times do we have to warn people before they realize it's a scam? If people want to use these powerful technologies then they have to realize there are potential risks and you can't be sending money to random people! lol I would shake the Nigerian's hand for helping to identify another stupid American. Maybe if they continue, all the stupid Americans will be bankrupt/broke and will push them out of the way for the smart people! Thank you Nigeria (for Internet Darwinism)
"Spears claimed she was sharing her story now in order to prevent others from falling victim to similar scams. "You're sitting there going 'how can I fall for something like that'," she said." LOL SORRY, EVERYONE ELSE ALREADY KNOWS ABOUT THIS SCAM!! I'd rather not live than live and be a clown. KILL YOURSELF
To blame others is to disempower ourselves by not accepting our own 'response-ability'
The Tao that can be named is not the Tao
...must have been a Nigerian scammer. What a fool I've been!
I wonder how many people missed the portion immediately below the article
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